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Facts?The mind boggles at the thought that Bush actually thought the White House, even with de rigueur help from an ever-obliging FCM, could put a positive spin on intelligence conclusions that let a meretricious cat out of the bag -- that showed that the Bush administration's case for war against Iran was as flimsy as its bogus case for invading Iraq.
How painful it was to watch the contortions the hapless Stephen Hadley, national security adviser at the time, went through in trying to square that circle. His task was the more difficult since, unlike the experience with the dishonestly edited/declassified version of what some refer to as the Whore of Babylon -- the Oct. 1, 2002 NIE on WMD in Iraq, this time the managers of the Estimate made sure that the declassified version of the key judgments presented a faithful rendering of the main points in the classified Estimate.
A disappointed Bush writes, "The backlash was immediate. [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad hailed the NIE as a "great victory.'" Bush's apparent "logic" here is to use the widespread disdain for Ahmadinejad to discredit the NIE through association, i.e., whatever Ahmadinejad praises must be false.
But can you blame Bush for his chagrin? Alas, the NIE had knocked out the props from under the anti-Iran propaganda machine, imported duty-free from Israel and tuned up by neoconservatives here at home.
How embarrassing. Here before the world were the key judgments of an NIE, the most authoritative genre of intelligence analysis, unanimously approved "with high confidence" by 16 agencies and signed by the Director of National Intelligence, saying, in effect, that Bush and Cheney were lying about the "Iranian nuclear threat."
It is inconceivable that, as the drafting of the Estimate on Iran proceeded during 2007, the intelligence community would have kept the White House in the dark about the emerging tenor of its conclusions. And yet, just a month before the Estimate was issued, Bush was claiming that the threat from Iran could lead to "World War III."
The Russians More Honest?
Ironically, Russian President Vladimir Putin, unencumbered by special pleading and faux intelligence, had come to the same conclusions as the NIE.
Putin told French President Nicolas Sarkozy in early October 2007:
"We don't have information showing that Iran is striving to produce nuclear weapons. That's why we're proceeding on the basis that Iran does not have such plans."
In a mocking tone, Putin asked what evidence the U.S. and France had for asserting that Iran intends to make nuclear weapons. And, adding insult to injury, during a visit to Tehran on Oct. 16, 2007, Putin warned: "Not only should we reject the use of force, but also the mention of force as a possibility."
This brought an interesting outburst by President Bush the next day at a press conference, a bizarre reaction complete with his famously tortured syntax:
Q. "Mr. President, I'd like to follow on Mr. -- on President Putin's visit to Tehran -- about the words that Vladimir Putin said there. He issued a stern warning against potential U.S. military action against Tehran. "Were you disappointed with [Putin's] message?"Bush: "I -- as I say, I look forward to -- if those are, in fact, his comments, I look forward to having him clarify those. And so I will visit with him about it."
Q. "But you definitively believe Iran wants to build a nuclear weapon?"
Bush: "I think so long -- until they suspend and/or make it clear that they -- that their statements aren't real, yes, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon. And I know it's in the world's interest to prevent them from doing so. I believe that the Iranian -- if Iran had a nuclear weapon, it would be a dangerous threat to world peace.
"But this is -- we got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding world war III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have (sic) the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously, and we'll continue to work with all nations about the seriousness of this threat."
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